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Updated: June 1, 2025
The hour had now come for the denouement of that home tragedy which was being enacted in the Rue St. Gilles. The reader will remember the incidents narrated at the beginning of this story, M. de Thaller's visit and angry words with M. Favoral, his departure after leaving a package of bank-notes in Mlle.
They had been in Italy, they said when they returned; but no one had seen them there. Yet, as Mme. and Mlle. de Thaller's mode of life was, after all, the same as that of a great many women who passed for being perfectly proper, as there was no positive or palpable fact brought against them, as no name was mentioned, many people shrugged their shoulders, and replied, "Pure slanders."
Standing upon a bench, a little short man was exciting transports of indignation by describing the magnificence of the Baron de Thaller's residence, where he had once had some dealings. He had counted five carriages in the carriage-house, fifteen horses in the stables, and Heaven knows how many servants.
And, bouncing to the piano, she began an accompaniment loud enough to crack the window-panes, singing at the same time the popular refrain of the "Young Ladies of Pautin": Cashier, you've got the bag; Quick on your little nag, And then, ho, ho, for Belgium! Any one but Marius de Tregars would have been doubtless strangely surprised at Mlle. de Thaller's manners.
M. d'Avranchel had already resumed his seat at the table, and was again busy with his papers. "You may retire," he said. "You will be notified if I need you." Maxence felt much discouraged when he joined M. de Tregars at the entrance of the gallery. "The judge is convinced of M. de Thaller's entire innocence," he said.
And then he thought of something else; and the "shanty" was still standing on that evening, when, after leaving Maxence, M. de Tregars presented himself at M. de Thaller's.
Maxence made no answer. "Be it so," insisted the commissary. "I admit M. de Thaller's complicity; but then we must suppose that he had over your father some powerful means of action." "An employer always has a great deal of influence over his subordinates." "An influence sufficiently powerful to make them run the risk of the galleys for his benefit! That is not likely.
"I am here to make you understand that we must give up projects which cannot be realized. There are some social conventionalities which cannot be torn up." As if he scarcely understood what she said, he repeated, "Social conventionalities!" And suddenly falling at Mme. de Thaller's feet, his head thrown back, and his hands clasped together, "You lie!" he said.
He had the contracted features and tightly-drawn lips of a man who is maturing a grave determination, which, once taken, will be irrevocable. Once in the street, and when Maxence had opened the carriage-door, "We are going to separate here," he told him in that brief tone of voice which reveals a settled plan. "I know enough now to venture to call at M. de Thaller's.
"I believe, my friend, that we are very near penetrating at once the mystery of your birth and the secret of the hatred that has pursued you since the day when you first set your foot in M. de Thaller's house." Admirably self-possessed as Mlle. Lucienne usually was, the quivering of her lips betrayed at this moment the intensity of her emotion. After more than a minute of profound meditation,
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